Aware and awake: Daniel Clarke Flynn’s Thought for the Week

‘Creation would be incomplete without us.’

There are those who say that our essence as human animals is comprised of consciousness, creative energy, and love. I have come to believe that my body came out of, and is maintained in this temporary life by, an eternal no-thing being: energy, the light to which I will return.

One thing I believe I have learned in this life is that everyone experiences trauma at some point. In fact, our lives can become defined by how we choose to proceed following that trauma. For me, practising openness to lifelong learning, building from my own experience as well as that of others, helps us discover what choices are best. I have learned that choosing to imitate those whose behaviour I most admire yields the most fulfilling life. 

To learn without limits, I need to practise being awake and aware to the present moment. ‘Awake’ for me means to be silent, still, conscious and aware that I am awake. ‘Aware’ means a wordless ‘knowing’ between not-knowing and knowing.

I have come to believe that all human animals have an ability to listen and observe without judgment; to become aware of intuitions, or unplanned thoughts, which do not come through our physical senses. Most important of all is to choose the positive intuitions over the negative ones; to choose creation over destruction, to choose love over hate, compassion over war, light over dark. This I find I must do in all my affairs, every day. 

I also believe that we are each unique, temporary and necessary sparks of creation – necessary because creation would be the lesser, and incomplete, without us. But I also believe that we are equal in our humanity, while being shaped by a range of considerations. These might include: our DNA; where in the world we were born and grew up; our tribe, clan, village, city, metropolitan area, region, nation, or continent; our ethnicity, gender, language, literacy, means of communication, culture; our religious or spiritual background; our understandings of science and its revolutions (which have revealed that our Earth and our humanity is but a tiny speck in a still largely unknown and expanding universe); and the economic system we are part of – consider our modern capitalism and what has come with it, up to and including an addiction to things that are unnecessary, and even harmful, to our life and survival.

I can practise being awake and aware anytime and anywhere by pausing. And when I then seek the relaxed, repetitive practice of choosing positive spiritual and moral/values to act on in all my affairs, one day at a time, I come into a more fulfilling life, the one I was created for. 

Do you practise being awake and aware for learning opportunities? If so, how?

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Comments

This is beautiful and echoes so much what I want to be doing moment by moment, day by day.

By katemackrell@mac.com on 2026 01 09

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